ALPES Ancient Language Promotion, Education and Support

Proposed User Group: ALPES edit

ALPES is a proposed Wikimedia user group, to help Ancient Language Promotion, Education and Support.

Proposed aims edit

  • Develop links with ancient and minority language groups for content co-operation and production
  • Develop better links with user groups working on topics where Classical and Ancient Languages are especially important
  • Ensure Wikimedia policies reflect the needs of Classical and Ancient Language Communities, including understanding their cultural importance and usage by minority groups
  • Help Classical and Ancient Language wikis fulfill Wikimedia's mission, by creating new, compelling and specialist content
  • Help Classical and Ancient Language wikis fulfill Wikimedia's mission by developing and deeping audiences
  • Share experience and develop best practice regarding common problems, such as linguistic accuracy and handling modern terminology
  • Help Wikimedia provide in-language Classical and Ancient Language teaching materials, such as beginner and intermediate texts, videos and recordings
  • Help Wikimedia provide other Classical and Ancient Language teaching materials, especially where these are not freely available.

Steering Group edit

  • We will need a steering group of at least one person with links to each language community.
  • We will be open to users from other Ancient Language wikis and historians and others who use these languages and wish to help.

Languages and their backgrounds edit

Current Classical Language Wikis
Geographical usage Wiki WP Usage notes
Europe, Americas, Global Latin Wikipedia; Latin Wikisource Latin Wikibooks, Latin Wiktionary w:Latin Liturgical, government and education, and official status; vast and varied recorded literature; used for botanical naming and description, zoological naming, and in certain other scientific fields
India and some other Asian countries Sanskrit Wikipedia, Sanskrit Wikisource Sanskrit Wiktionary w:Sanskrit Literary, social and liturgical language, includes revival efforts and official status, important for several religions and many countries; vast and varied recorded literature
Sinophone areas, also in Japan, Korean peninsula and Vietnam Literary Chinese Wikipedia w:Literary Chinese Extremely long usage of written language in the Chinese history and neighboring people; usage declined after 1920s; compulsary subject in some countries; decline in liguistic competence but output still present; vast and varied recorded literature
Current Liturgical Language Wikis
Geographical usage Wiki WP Usage notes
East Europe Church Slavonic Wikipedia w:Church Slavonic Liturgical language; secular written language in Russia into 1700s
India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand Pali Wikipedia w:Pali Buddhist liturgical language, widely studied; large recorded literature
Current Historical Language Wikis
Central Europe, Asia Gothic Wikipedia w:Gothic language Historical language with limited corpus
North Europe Anglo-Saxon Wikipedia w:Old English Historical language with moderately sized corpus

Add your user name here to join edit

(Please add which Ancient languages or Ancient Language Wikis you work with)

Other pages edit

Comms channels edit